More Funding Needed To Build Um's Islamic Center

MIAMI — A few days after Sept. 11, 2001, University of Miami President Donna Shalala met with anxious Muslim students, assuring them they would find safety and support on campus.

She also assured them of one other thing: A long-awaited campus prayer center or mosque would become reality. Groundbreaking was planned for no later than spring 2002.

It didn't happen.

The faculty adviser to the campus' two Islamic groups said inadequate funding is the major hurdle standing in the way of the planned $5.9 million center, which has been on and off the university's drawing board for 22 years.

"We didn't get the money. It's that simple, but I am not frustrated. I think we are very close. I think by early next year we should have all the money," said Moiez Tapia, a professor of electrical engineering and adviser to the Islamic Society of the University of Miami and the Muslim Student Organization.Tapia said fund-raising efforts concentrate on soliciting donations from the Muslim community in the United States and from Middle Eastern countries, which after Sept. 11, have been problematic.

"It is very difficult," Tapia said. "Sept. 11 hurt. People in the Middle East are now more reluctant to give donations, especially to the United States, for fear that the U.S. government will ask where else they are sending money."

There are some successes, however. A third of the money, $2 million is coming from Muhammad Abughazalahm, chairman and CEO of Fresh Del Monte Produce. The project is expecting another large donation from Kuwait's Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs, an organization that has helped build mosques in a number of Islamic countries, Tapia said.

The idea for an Islamic center came about in 1980 when the Muslim Student Organization embarked upon a fund-raising campaign. The group raised a half-million dollars and tried to purchase land near campus on Sunset Drive, Tapia said. The business venture failed, and the money was lost. Afterward, the university decided to put a faculty member, Tapia, to oversee the project.

Tapia said that it has been difficult to raise money over the years because many of the prospective benefactors are ambassadors or royalty and are often difficult to reach. "If I could talk to a prince face to face I think I could convince him," Tapia said "but it is not that easy."

For its part, the university has donated the land to build the Islamic center on campus. The university also is helping with fund-raising efforts. Tapia said because of Shalala's Lebanese background, she is familiar with the needs of the Muslim community and made an undisclosed personal donation to the project. Tapia said he thinks that with support from the university, construction on the center should begin soon.

Meanwhile, Muslim students at the university are still waiting.

"We have had Muslim students here since the '50s. It should have happened a long time ago," said Nadia Esther Orta, vice president of the Islamic Society, which has about 70 members. Also on campus is the Muslim Student Organization, which counts about 30 members. The university has about 250 Muslim students.

Until the center is built, Muslims use one of four places on campus to have their mandatory Friday prayer services, including the lawn when the four locations are not available. Problems are inherent at each location, Muslim students say.

On a typical Friday, hundreds of Muslim men stand in line waiting to cram into the two-sink men's bathroom on the second floor of the University Center to wash their hands, arms, feet, faces and heads before prayer. Then they carry their prayer mats to pray in either the Flamingo Ballroom or adjacent rooms.

When those rooms are not available, there is nowhere else to pray except outside, said Fawad Siddiqui, a 23-year-old senior and former president of the Islamic Society.

"We go outside to the lawn of Building 21, but if it rains the lawn turns to mud. So there we are on our rugs in the mud and we pray."

When a room at the Center for Student Services is used, it is too small to support the large number of Muslims who come from outside the school. With the closest mosque in Liberty City, the university is the only place within miles that has available space for students, faculty and the rest of the local Muslim community to pray, Siddiqui said. Traditionally, he said, there can be up to 250 people on campus for Friday prayer.

The new building, which will have adequate areas for the ritual washings, also will contain a multipurpose hall, separate prayer halls for men and women, a kitchen, garden and office space.

Many of the students and faculty say they are looking forward to the new Islamic Center as a place to pray and to educate. The new building also will contain a library with an abundance of information on Islam and a reading room for study.

"Now more than ever before there is a need to explain Islam to the American people correctly," Tapia said. "Building the Islamic center is the best way to educate. The university is the center of cultural, social and political life. This is a place where there are a lot of young people searching for truth. If you want to study Islam there will be no better place."

Still, after 22 years of failed attempts, some students remain skeptical that the center will get built at all.

"When I first came to UM, I thought it was going to be built because of the high population of Muslim students here, said Muntaser Syee, a member of the Muslim Student Organization. "I have been keeping up with it all but I don't believe the chances of it being built while I'm still here are good," said Syee, 20-year-old junior brought up in the United Arab Emirates. "The parking garages got built but the plans for the Islamic center are still on paper."